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Passed For Promotion

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The train trundled slowly between stations on the outskirts of the commuter belt. We were the last two passengers. I was pretending I was engrossed in my book while she muttered and shook her head in the seat opposite. With the distraction of that, and the attractive pair of legs that kept crossing and uncrossing, I’d hardly turned the page for the last half an hour.

“Can you believe it?” she suddenly said. I looked up for the first time. She was looking straight at me. She had icy blue eyes, full red lips, and long, blonde hair tied into a bun on the top of her head. She was probably in her mid-twenties and was stunningly beautiful.

“Hmm?” I said. It was all I could manage in response as my pupils dilated so I could take in as much of her as possible.

“They think they can just walk all over you,” she said, looking out of the window. I followed her gaze. It was a warm autumn evening, with light still in the sky, and the open window allowed a welcome breeze to enter the carriage.

“Yeah…” I said, not really sure what I was supposed to say. I pretended to return to my book.

“Years they’ve made me wear this stupid uniform,” she said. I looked up again. She looked very attractive to me in a bright red pencil skirt and jacket, white blouse buttoned all the way up to the neck and a mauve scarf tied loosely around her throat. In fact, I’m sure I’ve fantasised about a woman who looked like her many a time before.

“I think you look great,” I said with a half-smile. Partly I was trying to calm her down, but maybe this was how she met guys and I didn’t want to miss an opportunity.

“Not good enough to be senior cabin crew, apparently,” she said. So that explained the uniform, and the bad mood.

I smiled, still not knowing what to say.

“Well, I’ve had enough of them,” she said, and she pulled at the scarf tied around her neck. The knot unravelled and she screwed up the tiny ball of light fabric and stared intensely at it as she rolled it between her fingers. Suddenly, she tossed it out of the window.

“Been a tough day, huh?” I asked, wanting to offer some kind of support.

“Been a tough year, more like,” she answered. Now she had my attention, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. “They make us wear all this,” she looked down at herself and I followed her gaze, right down to her elegant, shapely legs and the bright red shoes on her feet. “And we all know it’s just to keep the men occupied gawping at us on the flight.” I could see why that would happen.

She suddenly stood in front of me, feet together, one leg slightly bent at the knee and her hand on her hip. “They just make us look ridiculous.”

I looked her up and down again: she looked like a dream come true, but I didn’t think saying so would help. Nor was I about to agree that she looked ridiculous.

“This jacket is always pinching at the waist,” she continued, and as she spoke she unfastened the single button that held it closed, shrugged it off her shoulders, slid it down her arms and held it out in front of her as if she’d found a dead rat in her kitchen. She looked at it in disgust.

“Well, screw them, and their uniform,” she said, and she threw the jacket out of the window. I watched as the wind took hold of it and it flapped into the bushes by the side of the tracks. My first thought was that it looked far too expensive a jacket to be throwing away, but then the thought was erased instantly.

“And these shirts nearly choke us,” she said.

Still standing, she unfastened the button held tight around her neck. My eyes went wide as she unfastened another button, and another.

“We get trussed up like a turkey,” she said.

Four buttons undone. Now five. I willed her to keep going. I could see her white bra through the opening. She pulled the blouse out of the tight skirt waistband.

“And it’s all so the customers don’t have to treat us like people,” she said disdainfully.

She gave up fumbling with buttons and pulled hard at the bottom of the blouse. The last two buttons popped off and I watched as they rolled around the floor of the train carriage. She unfastened the cuffs as I tried not to stare at her chest and at her smooth, flat stomach. She pulled at the shirt sleeves with first one hand and then the other, almost tearing it off her arms, and then, without a pause, she bundled it up and threw it out of the window.